Amelia Blackwell was on her knees beside her sisters, Iris and Marta. The zombie soldiers of the pirate queen had forcefully lined them up in a row. Each of them was in the grip of no less than three zombies, which were far too close for comfort and the stink of death was unavoidable.
Amelia couldn’t see her sisters, since one of the zombies was blocking her view to the left, but Marta, the oldest, muttered, “Don’t give up! If we combine our magic-” her words were suddenly cut off as she screamed in agony and it went on for close to a full minute!
Extremely wasteful magic filled the air, as if someone with incredible power had cast a spell without the slightest clue how to use their magic with any kind of efficiency. Amelia felt dwarfed by the intensity of it, which reminded her of the first time she’d experienced it, less than an hour before.
Meanwhile, Iris, the middle sister, struggled and growled, “Get your hands off my sis-” like Marta, the same unseen torture was applied, but instead of screaming, Iris merely grunted, because she had a high threshold for pain.
Once again, the same kind of wasteful magic washed through the room, leaving Amelia feeling almost numb on the inside.
She looked down from the granite wall that occupied the majority of her view and instead looked at a polished floor of the same stone. She was disgusted by her own weakness, but there was nothing her magic could do if her sisters had failed; all three of them had fought back with everything they had to hand, but it hadn’t been enough.
As the weakest witch of the sisters, Amelia felt utterly hopeless and didn’t even struggle, because the zombies were far stronger. Likewise, magic had proved equally futile and they’d been out-matched at every turn. Tears dripped from Amelia’s eyes, running down her cheeks.
“What say you, little one?” The rasping voice of the Dead Queen taunted Amelia, the breath of the undead witch gently touching Amelia’s left ear as the woman’s fetid, rotting breath passed Amelia’s nostrils, “Have you no fight, child?”
Amelia remained silent, because she just wanted the monstrous woman to get on with things, since arguing wouldn’t accomplish anything of value and could only make things worse, but the tears rolling down Amelia’s cheeks finally reached the point at which they could cling to her no longer, falling to the floor. The resulting cruel laughter from the undead witch made Amelia feel smaller than ever.
Finally, the witch shuffled away, the fabric of her dress swishing on the floor. Everything was silent for a time, aside from a little whimpering from Marta.
“Fire and earth, such a lovely combination of magic.” The Queen seemed to quietly revel in the sensation of Marta’s magic for a time, before she instructed, “Take this one away. Her soul is ideal for consumption.”
As low as Amelia had been feeling, it got worse as Marta managed to beg, despite her obvious pain, “Please, no! Anything but that!” Her pleading grew quieter with distance, as the zombie soldiers dragged her away, their armored feet clanking as they walked.
“This little doggy also, but I want her interrogated first.” The Queen ordered, after another long moment, “I want to know what she was doing to the spell-core.”
Iris somehow found the strength to be defiant as she was likewise dragged away, “You won’t find that so easy with me! I’ll fight back with everything I’ve-” her words ended in another agony-induced grunt, accompanied by that overwhelming sensation of uncontrolled magic!
The dress of the awful witch swished across the floor again, until the sound came to a halt directly behind Amelia.
“What to do, what to do?” The pirate witch muttered, “I’ve never seen such a weak witch before. I could consume her soul, but I would probably waste more magic in the act than I would gain…” The swish of the dead witch’s dress as it trailed back and forth across the floor marked the fact she was pacing, but after a time, she stopped and muttered, “The other two will enrich my magic for centuries to come, but this fish? Throw her back, because she’s too weak!” As Amelia was dragged away, the Queen called out, “Oh, and drain the water tanks of her little vessel before you release it, but leave just enough to force her to choose between maneuvering and drinking water!” The old witch cackled!
Amelia didn’t bother to resist as the zombies dragged her away, though her tears continued to fall.
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From the outside, the main body of Starwitch appeared as an elongated, gleaming, metallic tube, approximately sixty meters long, the whole of it somewhat resembling an arrow, with a set of aerodynamic control fins at the tail, for precision control in an atmosphere. However, the arrow-like qualities only went so far, because while the nose of the craft was indeed shaped like a flat variation of arrowhead, the body widened behind it and the leading edge continued along the sides, which were peaked, for an aerodynamic profile. Two heavy, steel masts stuck out from pocket-like cavities in the sides, which they could be folded into for minimal drag, while a third jutted up from the flat surface of the top of it. There was a broken stub of a fourth on the bottom, which was almost six feet long, while the others extended the full length of the vessel.
Blue starlight gathered around the masts, streaming back and forth between them, shaping itself into a translucent mesh of half-solid matter so thin, the only thing it could truly interact with was sunlight. However, that was sufficient, because the trick was to diffract the light of the sun to change its angle and provide a small measure of thrust, functionally very similar to the way a cloth sail caught the wind. Even the broken mast served its purpose, though it was obvious the vessel listed through space at an odd angle, to make up for the damage. The sails split the light of the sun into its component parts, producing a colorful rainbow-like pattern of scattering light.
The two side masts were at full extension, as was the broken one, while the top mast lay very nearly flat against the hull, almost making up for the difference, at the cost of lower acceleration, though Starwitch still listed at a funny angle. Every once in a while, a nearly-hidden side port spewed a spray of gas, a more powerful form of thrust that put the light sails back into alignment to catch the light.
The weak light sail spell that moved the vessel required little magic, but was extremely efficient. It wasn’t any good for high-G maneuvers, but shined at providing constant acceleration over a long period of time, something a more powerful spell could never accomplish.
There were a few windows in the hull, but most appeared black, because they’d been enchanted to darken when exposed to intense light and Starwitch was currently in direct sun, with no atmosphere outside, conditions that could be dangerous to the naked eye.
Inside the control room of the ship, which was called the ‘witchpit’, Amelia adjusted a set of four control winches to control the angle of the masts. Two were set at either side of the witchpit, while the other two were at the top and bottom. The room lined up with the exterior hull, though there was a thin, structural gap between, providing an extra layer of protection from the vacuum of space, in case of a meteorite. The space between served as one of many water tanks, incidentally providing additional shielding against cosmic rays, at least when they were full. There were glass windows on the top and sides, some giving a view of the stars, while the others were so dark, the only thing that could be made out was the light of the local sun.
Below the front windows, a series of carefully cut and shaped quartz crystals had been mounted in a console with a surface sloped at an angle that was ideal for the pilot to view them. They were flat and rectangular, each six inches square, half an inch thick, polished and mounted flush with the surface of the console. Amelia and Iris had enchanted them with scrying magic to give unfettered views of space and the exterior of Starwitch.
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One provided a forward view, displaying a slab-like, floating, rectangular mountain of granite some distance away, beyond which was a white sphere covered in cracks, an icy moon. Another gave a rear view, showing the sun and stars. Four others allowed views of space above, below and to either side, most of which displayed stars. The last showed a view to the right side that included the swirled atmosphere of Junas, the gas giant the moon orbited, where a permanent storm lurked as a great red spot against bands of orange, brown, white and red. Six more crystals displayed exterior views of Starwitch that could be quite handy for assessing damage.
Tucked between the crystals were a few gauges, including one for exterior atmospheric pressure, which read as zero, and a series of others, which indicated how full the various water tanks were, each with two needles for different methods of measuring.
At the very center of it all was a little clock with brass hands set under glass, with a little handle to open it for the sake of setting the time, which ceaselessly ticked away. The face of it resembled a classic mechanical alarm clock, because that was exactly what it had once been, though the bells had been removed, to be used elsewhere.
Below the gauges and crystals was an array of small levers and buttons for various tasks, the largest of which was the throttle for the engines.
Set into the floor a bit back from the scrying crystals was a chair with very little padding for a pilot to sit, including a control stick on each armrest, one that controlled both the atmospheric flight control surfaces and the direction the rocket nozzles pointed, while the other stick allowed precise control of the gas thrusters, for low-energy orientation of Starwitch in a vacuum.
At the back of the room was a metal doorway leading to the rest of the ship, which was mostly living spaces and water storage, both for drinking and to serve as propellant for high-G acceleration.
The soft, background vibrations in the rigging went up from a C-sharp to a D, a higher pitch for increased light pressure as the sails turned to catch a little more of the solar wind. There was also a noticeable creak from the damaged masts and their hidden rigging, but they held.
Amelia’s smile of satisfaction was grim and her eyes bloodshot. She was short and athletic, with arms that bore more muscle than average, though it wasn’t all that apparent. There was grease smeared on her cheek, because no one was around to tell her she was filthy from working too hard. She wore a dirty one-piece bodysuit that she’d designed specifically for work, a no-frills affair with many pockets and loops for holding tools securely against her waist, which currently included a sheathed knife, a set of screwdrivers, pliers and largest of all, a hammer for those times when finesse wasn’t quite enough, which had become noticeably more frequent in recent days.
Amelia was in her mid twenties and her sisters sometimes teased her about being an old maid, because she’d been so busy working, she’d accidentally rejected nearly every man that came along, though her sisters were no better in that regard; Marta was a widow and Iris was too broken-hearted over a fiance that had been murdered under mysterious circumstances, to prevent him from marrying a witch.
The long, dirty blond hair Amelia had once prided herself on had been unevenly hacked off with a knife, because it had been flailing all over the place in the microgravity of the space between worlds and she hadn’t been able to spare time to braid it. That left her with only a few inches of hair, enough to wick away sweat, but not enough to get in her way.
She would normally have spared a little magic to cast a gravity-manipulation spell for the sake of comfort, but the mythril spell-core of Starwitch had been stolen, leaving Amelia with only her own magic, which wasn’t suited to such an energetic task. Her oldest sister, Marta, would have been able to make that work. Even Iris, the middle sister, might have managed it, but Amelia was the only source of magic left on board that could manage any form of movement spell and she had no magic to spare for other things.
She was dehydrated and she’d only slept two hours in three days, because Starwitch needed constant attention: it hadn’t been designed to be flown by a lone witch without the spell-core, though the Dead Queen hadn’t allowed any better option. Needs must, when evil, dead witches drive…
Like a miracle, the house Brownies had fully repaired three of the masts, and Amelia was grateful she’d coaxed them into accepting life aboard Starwitch,. because if she’d been left to her own devices, she’d never have been able to follow the Dead Queen’s monolith. It was strange, but comforting, living with creatures she’d never seen, who lived entirely on dairy products, like cheese, in exchange for their miraculous skill at repairs. Amelia had originally considered the three masts that had been badly bent unrepairable, but when she’d woken from a short nap after some work on the stub of the fourth, she’d been startled to find them in working order, without a single sign of damage. She had no idea how the Brownies pulled it off, since the masts were outside, where they couldn’t reach, but had sensed magic flowing through the hull for just a few seconds after she woke. She’d hoped for a similar miracle with the fourth, but the shy creatures seemed unable to do the same with it, since most of it was missing.
Even now, as Amelia clung to the pilot’s seat with her legs and peered through the forward scrying crystal at the image of the great, rectangular slab of granite floating in space, she knew what she planned to do was both insane and suicidal, but again, the Dead Queen had left no other choice.
Amelia was a dead woman without either the spell-core, one of her sisters, or enough water to run the main engines, all of which were on the monolith. If she’d been left with even one of the four, Starwitch could have limped her way to a friendly port, but without? Not a chance, and the Queen had done it on purpose.
Knowing it was the only way, Amelia had erected a light sail spell between the three functional masts and what remained of the fourth, until she’d been able to coax Starwitch into the monolith’s wake, the waste energy field left behind by the gravity-manipulation spells the massive structure used for thrust and maneuvering. That magic enriched Amelia’s light sail spell, allowing an extra kick of thrust, but only so long as she followed the ship that had taken everything from her. The evil, old bat’s calculations had been perfect in that regard.
The Queen could have had Amelia killed, but she’d intentionally left only one option for survival: a direct confrontation between Starwitch and the Dead Queen’s monolith, which was suicide. Never let it be said the old witch didn’t have a sense of humor, sick though it was. It was like the game of catch-and-release a cat might play with a mouse. Amelia knew she’d been released purely for entertainment value.
The dead witch’s rotting, stinking stench was a scent Amelia would never forget, nor would she forget the way she’d been dismissed, out of hand. The words still echoed in her mind: “The other two will enrich my magic for centuries to come, but this fish? Throw her back, because she’s too weak!”
It was true, Amelia’s magic had always been weak, but she excelled in other areas. She was best at small and delicate spells, with extreme precision. She was also an enchanter and engineer, talents she considered part of her true calling in life.
Too weak to be consumed by the Dead Queen, eh? Well, Amelia was going to show the old bat what a weak witch could do! She’d waited and watched for the perfect opportunity. Observing the distant hulk of the monolith beginning a control burn to move into orbit of the moon, probably in preparation to extract water for a multitude of purposes, Amelia adjusted her course very slightly, leaving the monolith’s wake behind, that Starwitch might enter orbit from another angle. The pitch of the rigging dropped back to a C, then down to a B as the waste magic subsided and the light pressure decreased.
Amelia knew she was supposed to be the mouse, that she was meant to be a little sport for the monolith’s captain, but she also knew something else: the last thing a cat ever expected was for the mouse to attack in a fury. She wasn’t going to attack from behind, because the Dead Queen expected stealth. Instead, she was going to hit the monolith from the front. It was going to take precision flying, delicate magical control and perfect mathematics, but all three were what Amelia was known for.
The Dead Queen was going to regret touching Starwitch, because the little vessel still had a few hidden surprises, but that conflict was at least two days away.
Amelia watched the monolith slowly grow more distant, while her own course took her toward a polar orbit. Having witnessed the monolith maneuver like a humming bird as it employed massive steam rockets the way smaller ships used gas thrusters, she knew the mountain of granite required massive amounts of water. That meant the Queen was likely stopping to refuel at Kryenna, the icy moon, which had an orbiting port that served mostly as a fuel station.
Amelia hoped her assumptions were correct, because if they weren’t, she might end up in an unwanted slingshot maneuver that would throw her into deep space, while her enemy moved on. It was a gamble, but uncertain death was a slight improvement over all other options.
As she performed the calculations for orbital insertion in her head, Amelia couldn’t help but regret dragging her sisters into the biggest mess she could have. Tears pooled around her eyes, blurring her vision, until she wiped them away, leaving little droplets floating through the witchpit.
It had started so innocently, with a book.